


Far from home

by ladylana



Series: Faraway land tales [1]
Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, use of headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylana/pseuds/ladylana
Summary: From a faraway land, they brought her to the dying city. Kept in the dark, isolated, she slowly withers away...Arelwin's story.
Series: Faraway land tales [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888282
Kudos: 6





	Far from home

The men spoke to her, but their words carried only an empty noise.

They stared at her, but their eyes were that of a predator.

The captured woman, held under the deck like a wild animal, looked at her prison with sadness and her cheek nestled gently to the wall. That, what was once a tree from a faraway land, whispered in her dreams old stories about centuries of existence. About wind playing with its leaves, animals nesting on its branches, water flowing in its roots. Cycles of life and death. She could almost feel the sun kissing her skin.

The men called her something as they brought food to her. She didn’t care about their words. There was something dark and unpleasant about them. They treated her like prey. She knew that sooner or later she will be devoured.

She couldn’t even recall her bond with the land. The sea was vast and bottomless. There was nothing familiar, nothing sacred. Men with marked faces were tending to her without much care. Their hands were always rough.

But there came a day, when they looked at her and learned about her greatest secret. She tried to hide, to shrink, to be so small and unnoticeable as an insect. She shivered, when the men came, with their dark faces and sharp eyes.

From that moment on, they watched her even more sharply.

*

The land smelled of death. Everything was screaming and dying, polluting the air with its first and last breath. When her feet touched the ground, everything spun around her, along with people’s voices. Someone grabbed her painfully, without much care, so that she wouldn't trip and fall on her face. So, she stood, with her mind spinning and weak knees.

A foreign voice cut through the noise. A man had appeared before her, looking as he just formed himself from thin air, holding a cup with something that smelled like a raging volcano.

“Here, child, drink this.”

She understood. It wasn’t that hard to learn words. She just didn’t care, as they didn’t care about her. But that man’s voice came through to her, as he looked seriously concerned. Her bond was already broken, but she could still feel a genuine intention, if it stood in front of her.

She drank. It tasted just like it smelled.

Orders were given, and she was taken.

The land was sick and distant.

*

He came again. After the men in long coats and masks left her cell.

She was still shaken.

She didn’t know where she was. It was dark, and there was no fresh air. Everything felt sick and rotten in this foreign land. The fire on the wall was her only source of light. The stones under her were wet and cold.

The man talked. He had dark, long hair and a moustache. He wore a smile when he talked, but it wasn’t evil as the others.

She wondered if he knows about her child. They took it away before she could act, and she didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. She only knew that her child lived, that she was sure of.

She didn’t talk that day or any other, as the man came down and talked. Sometimes, he had a book with him and read it, and she could only listen. She quickly learned words and phrases. It wasn’t that hard.

One day, she came closer to him. She kept her back straight and head up.

“The… baby?” 

Her first words after almost a year. Word in a foreign language. They hurt her. Tasted like ash.

The bars before her never looked so malicious.

“Of course, the baby!” The man sounded happy. He put down the book he was reading until now. He didn’t stand up, allowing her to look at him from above. An illusion of power. “The boy is perfectly healthy. The princess is taking care of him.”

A boy. So, it was a boy.

She gestured at her face.

“Is he…?”

The man raised his brow.

“Does he look like you? I’m not an expert on the children matter, but he’s perfectly normal.”

Normal. No marks? Just… a boy?

“He does have a face mark. I think it made the prince happy. He’s… a scheming man.”

After hearing that, she returned to her bed and sat down. Turned her face to the back wall.

She cried in silence.

The man said nothing else, and soon left her alone.

*

Next time, he brought a book for her. It contained pictures of plants – leaves, flowers, roots. She knew about most of them, but some looked foreign.

“It’s a medicine book. I thought maybe it will interest you.”

She looked at few pages.

“I will note down the names in your language, then I can teach you the names what we use for them.”

“What for?”

The man opened his mouth, but he hesitated for a moment.

Then, he coughed.

“I want to teach your son, but I don’t know anything about… plants.”

“You can show him this book.”

“Yes, but I don’t know a thing about them!”

“I… it… was a long time ago.”

She remembered, but it was the truth. Her memory was… hazy. Like everything happened in a different life, different time. Was it even real?

“There’s a chance that your son will return to the island when he grows up.”

She immediately focused her stare on him. The man was so close, just at the other side of the cell.

There was conviction in his eyes.

“Tír Fradí…”

“He should learn.”

She looked down. Then closed the book, and opened it on the first page.

“That is…”

*

It was calling her. Calling her home.

The men of this foreign land didn’t understand. They pretended to know and rule, but they were just children, searching for a way in the middle of a thick mist.

She had high fever for few days. The men in masks didn’t dare to come near her, but left some medicine. She didn’t take it. Then they came with their needles and little bottles.

But they didn’t have any power over life and death.

She laughed in their faces.

She was coming home. Soon. Her _minundhanem_ was smiling, with his arms open, ready to welcome her in his embrace.

*

“It’s him.”

The man was holding a sleeping boy. His hair was a little messy, and there was a pillow mark on his perfectly soft and almost pink skin. Just above his face mark. The sign of his true heritage.

He looked… he looked so perfect.

“The princess named him Dastan.”

There was something light and happy about this name. She… liked it.

The man sat down carefully. The boy snuggled closer to him and extended his little arms to hug him. His little fingers clutched on the man’s robe.

“I was teaching him about San Matheus, but it seems it bored him.”

She couldn't keep her eyes off him.

“He is… healthy.”

“He’s a fine boy.” The man said, with a pride in his voice. “He’s full of energy and he prefers to run down hallways with his cousin than listen to his elders.”

“I wish…” She stopped. No, she shouldn’t make wishes. She was only a prey kept in a dark cage.

“Are you giving up?” The man asked, with his brows frowned.

She chuckled.

“That’s not for anyone to decide. I still live, but for the longest time I’m dead. For my people, for my family, for my beloved. For my child and for myself. The woman I was… no longer exist.”

She reached under her clothes. Then, she stood up and came closer to the bars. She was holding something in her hand.

“That’s… the last piece of me and the place I come from. If…” She looked longingly at the sleeping boy, and a very complicated expression changed her face. “If there’s any good in you… please, give it to him. Maybe not now, but when he is old enough to…”

She stopped.

She faced fate worse than being forgotten by her own child.

She won’t exist in his memories.

The talisman felt heavy in her palm.

*

She felt empty. Like a shell that had lost its contents.

Far away from her homeland, with no possibility of escape or going back, she was just a shadow of herself. The land was poison to her. There was no answer when she called. She felt weaker and weaker, and they still were trying to use her for their benefits. The men in masks were coming and going, treating her like an object, with some miraculous remedy to their problems. They spoke of a sickness so great that even the wisest of her people would turn her heads in horror of it.

She didn’t have an answer.

Soon, her body surrendered to its own sickness. She prevailed for far too long now.

It was time for her to go home.

When the usual man came, she forced herself to sit. She still had the book he gave her, and she opened it at the right page, showing him what she needed.

“Poison”, she said. “Salvation”, she added.

She was so very tired.

The man looked at her with fear and shock.

“That’s… impossible! You can’t possibly think of…”

She could. She was.

She would have a nice dream, before meeting her beloved. She would go gently into the darkness, before finding what had been lost to her for so long.

Maybe, at last, she could breathe.

“Arelwin. My name… Arelwin.”

*

He stopped coming. Instead, only the masked ones came. They gave her something to drink, and her dreams became heavier. 

Her body burned. Her skin itched. Her vision became blurry.

One night, she saw the sky full of stars.

She cried, because she had forgotten about its beauty.

She forgot about her prison. Forgot about her loneliness and sickness. Her feet carried her forward, to the forest, where everything sang to her. She ran lightly, and she was almost as fast as the blowing wind.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Some called her, from the distance. A voice she knew. A voice she wanted to forget.

She shrugged, but didn’t stop. In a distance, she saw a campfire. Familiar silhouettes gathered around it. The earth breathed under her feet. Everything smelled and sounded like home.

A man stood up from around the campfire and smiled.

She answered with a smile.

“I… loved you. You were the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

She did not dare to look back. Her _minundhanem_ was right before her. She had longed for him for eternity. So, she took a step forward. The world around her seemed to expand, welcoming her, giving her strength and happiness.

But before she crossed that last line, she whispered:

“My son… bring him home.”

And then, she let go.

And her soul was finally free.

She had returned home.

*

Constantin d’Orsay, a four years old prince with a fair hair, was dozing off happily in the window corner, and the breeze was gently playing with his hair. His cousin, Dastan De Sardet, was sitting at the table near the window, exercising his art skills and failing at it greatly, when they both heard some distant commotion. Constantin lazily opened his eyes, and stretched his arms and legs while yawning. He looked like a cat, and Dastan smiled at the thought.

“What’s that?” The boy sitting on a window asked, looking through the glass.

“Guests?” Dastan finished his drawing with a few not so ideal smudges.

“No, the guards are gathering outside. Should we go see what’s it all about?”

The enthusiasm was hard not to notice. Dastan put away his tools and jumped down from the chair.

Two boys jumped down the stairs, laughing, as servant girls were screaming and telling them to watch out. The oldest maid tried her usual tactics, simply blocking the door, but they all played this game far too often. The boys escaped easily, while laughing madly. Constantin’s little colorful coat was fluttering happily as he run down the hallway, leading de Sardet to the entrance.

Unfortunately, in the main hall they met father Petrus and Sir de Courcillon. The boys knew that they would be in much more trouble if they ran away from those two men, but Constantin tried to do it anyway. Dastan was the one to stop him. He didn’t like being scolded.

“What are you doing here, boys? Don’t you have lessons?”

“We just finished” De Sardet answered before Constantin could say anything problematic. Something between the lines that lessons are boring.

“Yes, and we wanted to breathe some fresh air!” Constantin followed.

The men looked at themselves, and then at the boys.

“Why don’t you take something from the kitchen first? You must have been hungry.”

“No, we…”

“What’s going on?”

Prince d’Orsay appeared in the hallway, looking angry. Constantin instantly tugged at his cousin’s coat, looking scared. Both father Petrus and Sir de Courcillon bowed their heads and paid their respects.

“Good afternoon, uncle. We just finished our lessons and wanted to take a walk.”

“That’s not a right time for that. Go to your rooms. I will call a tutor later for you two.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Yes, father.”

Of course, Constantin already had a plan. They sneaked out through the servants door. Servants had to move around the house quickly and efficiently, so there were many secret doors for two young boys to use, if they were about to sneak around the house.

They pretended to go into the kitchen, but used one of the doors that a pampered noble should never ever use if they valued themselves. But two little boys didn’t really care about what’s right or wrong. They were just too curious about all the commotion.

They quickly made it to the back yard. There stood a wagon, and a couple of guards were loading something on it.

“A cargo? From the residence?” De Sardet was trying to understand what he’s seeing.

“I think they’re taking someone from the sick house.” Constantin also tried to explain it.

The sick house. Both of them shivered, just thinking about it. Dark rumors surrounded it, and even though the boys were courageous enough to peek inside, they never did, as they once saw a screaming man who tore his shirt apart, just at the doorstep to the sick house. His body was covered with malichor marks. Then, he started to claw at his skin, and before the nurses took him inside, he almost killed himself, while peeling his skin off.

Some people said that they were trying to procure a remedy there, but it was just too scary to go there.

“I wonder why my father involved the guards this time.”

“Maybe that person was very important?”

Constantin nodded.

“Yes, but it’s still odd. Should we follow it?”

“No, I don’t think it would be proper.”

“You’re no fun, cousin.”

“I don’t want to follow a cortege, that is indeed not fun. They are probably taking the body to burn it.”

“Yeah, but it’s suspicious anyway.”

“Leave it be, Constantin. Also, uncle probably is looking for us, we should leave.”

Mentioning his father seemed to do the trick. The boy jumped on de Sardet’s back and laughed, entwining himself properly with his arms and legs.

“Then onward, my dear cousin! We shall now return to our duties as proper students!”

Dastan glanced at the wagon one last time. He felt sad for that person, and wondered if he or she lived a good life before. He had hoped they did.

Then, he turned around and never looked back. 

**Author's Note:**

> It took me two days to write, and then two weeks to edit.  
> I'm so bad at this it's just sad. But this story sat in my head for far too long so I've decided to write it down.  
> I've written some other stories and I hope to post them soon.  
> Hope you enjoyed this story :-)


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